Condolence: Comrade Parsa Satyanarayana

The Secretariat of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) expresses its profound grief at the passing away of comrade Parsa Satyanarayana, veteran trade union leader and freedom fighter, on 22nd May 2015 at Eluru in Andhra Pradesh. Comrade Parsa Satyanarayana participated in the historic Telangana Armed Struggle. He was 91 and was not keeping well for some time due to old age related problems.

Comrade Parsa, as he was affectionately called, was the president of the Andhra Pradesh state committee of CITU for thirty years and also functioned as its honorary president. In his young days he worked in the Singareni coal fields when he started organising the coal workers there and became the founder leader of the Singareni Coal Workers' Union which was started during the Nizam's rule. He was the founder president of Singareni Coal Employees' Union when it was formed in 1978. For many years, Comrade Parsa was the editor of Karmikalokan, the monthly organ of CITU in Andhra Pradesh. He was the national vice president of CITU from 1994-2000.

Com Parsa was in charge of the state coordination committee of working women for long and took keen interest in its activities. He always used to encourage women cadres in the trade union movement and insisted on promoting them to leadership positions. He was elected to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Paloncha constituency but later resigned in support of the state wide agitation demanding the Visakha Steel Plant. He was also a member of the state secretariat of the Andhra Pradesh committee of CPI (M).